Chapter XIV.
He compares this erroneous view with the teaching of the
Pelagians.
Otherwise
if Christ who was
born of Mary is not the same Person as He who is of God, you certainly
make two Christs; after the manner of that abominable error of
Pelagius, which in asserting that a mere man was born of the Virgin,
said that He was the teacher rather than the redeemer of mankind; for
He did not bring to men redemption of life but only an example of how
to live, i.e., that by following Him men should do the same sort of
things and so come to a similar state. Your blasphemy then has but one
source, and the root of the errors is one and the same. They maintain
that a mere man was born of Mary: you maintain the same. They sever the
Son of man from the Son of God: you do the same. They say that the
Saviour was made the Christ by His baptism: you say that in baptism He
became the Temple of God.
They do
not deny that He became God after His Passion: you deny Him even after
His ascension. In one point only therefore your perverseness goes
beyond theirs, for they seem to blaspheme the Lord on earth, and you
even in heaven. We do not deny that you have beaten and outstripped
those whom you are copying. They at last cease to deny God; you never
do. Although theirs must not altogether be deemed a true confession, as
they only allow the glory of Divinity to the Saviour after His Passion,
and while they deny that He was God before this, only confess it
afterwards: for, as it seems to me, one who denies some part in regard
to God, denies Him altogether: and one who does not confess that He
ever existed, denies Him forever. Just as you also, even if you were to
admit that now in the heavens the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born of
the Virgin Mary, is God, would not truly confess Him unless you
admitted that He was always God. But indeed you do not want in any
point to change or vary your opinion. For you assert that He whom you
speak of as born a mere man, is still at the present time not God. O
novel and marvellous blasphemy, though with the heretics you assert Him
to be man, you do not with the heretics confess Him to be
God!